1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display device particularly adapted to expose flexible printed material through a protective and decorative freely rotatable tubular housing—a floating cowling—requiring no removal to expose or re-contain the printed material.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Prior containments for flags, scrolls, posters, maps and the like were required to be removed or deliberately opened or separated from the printed material they contain and therefore increased the amount of time and effort required before using the device for its principal functions of displaying the printed subject matter and its effective containment. Other containment/dispensing means required the device be fixed to a substantial structural support eliminating the portability of the device while in use whereas the present invention is hand-held. This device manifests a further improvement on other containment/dispensing means for rolled printed material in that it does not utilize springs, gears, motors or any other mechanical method more complicated than manual retraction and extension by simply rotating one's wrist and fingers. The following disclosures relate to various partial solutions to the problem of efficiently incorporating types of housings for display devices such that the housing's separation from the device is not required to effectively display the printed material therein:
Seidel (U.S. Pat. No. 6,038,800, issued Mar. 21, 2000); Haas (U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,869, issued Jul. 20, 1999); Stanley (U.S. Pat. No. 6,155,197, issued Dec. 5, 2000); Jennings (U.S. Pat. No. 4,825,571, issued May 2, 1989); Welsh (Can. Patent No. 2,160,612, filed Oct. 16, 1995); Cornell (U.S. Pat. No. 4,345,392, issued Aug. 24, 1982); Hasten (U.S. Pat. No. 6,006,900, issued Dec. 28, 1999); Augustine (U.S. Patent Application No. 20020056214 Ser. No. 09/862,142, filed May 2, 2001). The inventors believe that the cited disclosures taken alone or in combination neither anticipate nor render obvious the present invention. The foregoing citation does not constitute an admission that such disclosures are relevant or material to the claimed subject matter, rather, the disclosures relate only to the general fields of the invention and are cited as constituting the closest art of which the inventors are aware.